The report, that cited people informed with a conditions who were not identified, pronounced a Amherst-based supermarket chain’s debt bucket and heated attention foe are behind a intensity filing.

Tops officials declined criticism for a Bloomberg article, and a mouthpiece contacted by The Buffalo News on Saturday also pronounced a association would have no comment. Tops authority and CEO Frank Curci didn’t respond to requests for comment.

However, Burt P. Flickinger III, a tip sell attention consultant, pronounced it was doubtful Tops would record for failure immediately, given a sequence is in a center of a clever sales deteriorate and it has resources that it could precedence instead of seeking failure protection. But anything is possible, pronounced Flickinger, handling executive of New York sell consulting organisation Strategic Resource Group.

“It could happen. It shouldn’t happen. Do not design it to happen, given Tops has a array of profitable resources that it could sell,” pronounced Flickinger.

While failure can assistance strengthen a association while it reorganizes and deals with debt, it doesn’t meant a association will go out of business.

Flickinger forked to Tops’ network of gas stations located on store property, as good as a 21 Grand Union stores a association acquired in 2012 in a Albany area, a Adirondacks and Vermont.

Tops Holdings, a owners of a supermarket chain, has come underneath inspection in new years for a high turn of debt. In Nov it was combined to a list of companies whose debt has been labeled a “concern” by one of a nation’s 3 categorical credit rating agencies.

At a time, a company’s debt surfaced $627 million, built adult by a array of leveraged buyouts given Tops was sole by Ahold to Morgan Stanley Private Equity in 2007. It grew again after government bought a supermarket sequence from Morgan Stanley in a rarely leveraged buyout 4 years ago.

Tops done it onto a list of at-risk retailers final tumble given of a unsettled debt sell it finished in August, something Fitch Ratings considers a default. Tops responded that a transaction in doubt was a technicality and that a association is assured it has a clever adequate money upsurge to cover a bills.

Standard Poor’s rates Tops CCC+, that means a association is “not expected to accommodate a financial commitments” on debt in a eventuality of inauspicious business, financial or mercantile conditions, according to a agency. Moody’s gives Tops a rating of Caa1, that deems it in “poor standing” and “subject to really high credit risk,” according to that agency.

“They’re not in trouble, though to your benefaction point, a debt levels are among a top in North American retailing,” Flickinger said.

The supermarket attention is rarely competitive. In a Buffalo Niagara region, Tops battles for a faithfulness of shoppers with Wegmans, Dash’s Markets, Walmart, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market, among other stores.

Flickinger concurred Tops’ difficulties, though he pronounced a association has strengths Its stores have some of a best real-estate locations in North America, giving it a “huge consumer and rival advantage.”

He also pronounced Tops had clever sales by a tumble and winter holiday season, amplified by a Buffalo Bills’ run to a playoffs and a colder-than-average winter that steers some-more shoppers into grocery stores.

Flickinger pronounced Tops’ money position is as clever as it has been in 12 months. If there is a filing, he said, it many expected would come after this spring, in late Apr or early May, that is a diseased duration for supermarket sales.